Particular embodiments generally relate to dynamic processing of activity maps, and more specifically to dynamic workforce assignment.
In retail environments, optimal distribution of store employees with respect to the distribution of customers is desired. A retailer would like to have employees available in areas of a store in which the amount of customers is most concentrated at a given point in time. If employees are not available to help customers, the customers may start searching for employees or leave the store. This may negatively impact sales for the retailer and also negatively impact the perception of the retailer. However, having more employees in higher traffic areas may lead to a higher turnover of customers being served within a timeframe and also potentially more customers being attracted to the store in the long term based on the positive perception of existing customers.
In some jurisdictions, privacy of employees is protected. For example, tracking of employees is prohibited by law in some countries and raises ethical issues. Thus, the position of employees cannot be tracked and used to assign them to different areas of the store in those jurisdictions. In this case, an employee may not be able to transmit his/her position coordinates in the store where someone other than the employee is aware of the position of employee in the store.